


Interpolate - Some Assembly Required

by cutsycat



Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1495]
Category: NCIS
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2019-12-16
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21816745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cutsycat/pseuds/cutsycat
Summary: Tony attempts to put together a toy that he bought for Tali. The problem? Three little words that say 'Some Assembly Required'. Fortunately, Gibbs is better with construction than Tony and is there to save the day.
Relationships: Anthony DiNozzo/Jethro Gibbs
Series: Dictionary.Com Word of the Day Drabbles [1495]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/444514
Comments: 16
Kudos: 47
Collections: Cutsycat's NCIS Happy Holidy LJ Challenge 2019





	Interpolate - Some Assembly Required

**Author's Note:**

> Another dictionary.com word of the day drabble. This time from 06/04/2003 for the word [interpolate](http://www.dictionary.com/wordoftheday/2003/06/04/interpolate).
> 
> interpolate[ in-tur-puh-leyt ]  
> verb (used with object), in·ter·po·lat·ed, in·ter·po·lat·ing.  
> to introduce (something additional or extraneous) between other things or parts; interject; interpose; intercalate.  
> Mathematics. to insert, estimate, or find an intermediate term in (a sequence).  
> to alter (a text) by the insertion of new matter, especially deceptively or without authorization.  
> to insert (new or spurious matter) in this manner.  
> verb (used without object), in·ter·po·lat·ed, in·ter·po·lat·ing.  
> to make an interpolation.
> 
> This is for Day 15: Workshop/Some Assembly Required of the [Happy Holiday Challenge on lj](https://ncis-discuss.livejournal.com/237765.html).

“What is that?” Gibbs stared at the monstrosity in his living room, a touch aghast.

“Uh. The results of ‘Some Assembly Required’.”

“You forgot to check the labels again, didn’t you?”

Tony looked sheepish. “Yeah.”

“What is it supposed to be?”

“A toy for Tali,” Tony murmured as he tried again to make his collection of pieces match the picture on the box by interpolating a piece between two others based on the picture and what he thought it was supposed to look like.

“Did you look at the instructions?” 

Tony softly shook his head. 

“You know you do much better when you follow the instructions.”

Tony harrumphed. “I should be able to put together a simple toy for Tali. It shouldn’t be this hard.”

Gibbs watched as Tony continued to try to make his creation match the picture with no success. “Why don’t you let me handle this?”

“I should be able to put together a toy for my daughter, Gibbs. Am I terrible father?”

“No, of course not. Here, let me help. I’m sure we can salvage this.”

Tony pouted. “Why is this so hard?”

“You just need more practice. You’re much better at catching criminals than do it yourself projects. Didn’t helping Abby with Habitat for Humanity prove that?” Gibbs pointed out gently.

Tony groaned, “God. Don’t remind me, but this isn’t like that. It’s just a small toy with some assembly required.”

“Remember some assembly required is just the manufacturer’s way of saying we were too lazy to put it together for you and have left the most complicated part for you to do yourself.”

“Obviously, I have failed their test.”

Gibbs patted Tony’s back. “It’s ok. Why don’t you let me handle this. Don’t you have other gifts to wrap for Tali?”

Tony frowned, “If you always take over, how will I ever learn?”

“I can teach you if you want, but it will take me a bit to figure out what you’ve already done and what it really should be. It will probably be pretty boring to watch.”

”I have to learn sometime, Gibbs.”

“Ok. If you’re sure.” Gibbs patted the floor next to him.

Once Tony sat down, Gibbs immediately started taking apart everything Tony had done.

“Hey!” Tony protested.

“Sometimes you have to figure out what you’re working with before you can put it together,” Gibbs explained calmly.

“Fine,” Tony pouted, crossing his arms defensively as he watched his hard work be taken apart.

Once they had all the pieces laid out together, Gibbs pulled the box over closer and walked Tony step through step of how to put together the toy. Gibbs didn’t believe in instructions, but unlike Tony he knew enough construction basics that he could get away without them. Gibbs let Tony put the last piece in and smiled at the look of satisfaction Tony had on his face. 

“I’ll leave you to wrap these.” Gibbs nodded his head towards the remaining gifts for Tali. “Steak good for dinner tonight?”

“Sounds great, Gibbs.” Tony started in on wrapping the presents. After tonight, they wouldn’t have another chance to wrap presents without worrying about Tali seeing them. Abby was currently watching Tali and they would be picking her up in the morning before work.

Tonight, they would get a chance to lavish each other with affection and care and renew their relationship before having to once again put their daughter first. While technically Tali was Ziva’s daughter, she’d practically given Tali to Tony and Gibbs had adopted Tali the first chance he got. Gibbs hadn’t been impressed with Ziva’s handling of the situation, given that Tony wasn’t even Tali’s biological father, but he’d been listed on her birth certificate.

Both Tony and Gibbs knew for a fact that there was no way that Tali contained blood from either of them. They’d been exclusive long before Ziva became pregnant and they both trusted each other. The only reason Tony had accepted Tali was because he wasn’t willing to let a child suffer for Ziva’s mistakes.

Neither one of them believed for a minute that Ziva was actually dead. Gibbs had adopted Tali legally, so that it wouldn’t be easy for Ziva to come in and uproot Tali from her life with them. That had been three years ago now and neither of them had regretted it despite the crimp it put on their sex life.

Of course, this was the first Christmas after finding out officially that Ziva wasn’t dead. Tony was kind of worried that Ziva would show up Christmas day and make a big scene and ruin it for Tali. Gibbs had comforted him multiple times and insisted that they wouldn’t let it happen, but Tony still worried.

Tony breathed a sigh of relief as Christmas morning dawned and there was no sign of Ziva attempting to horn in on their Christmas celebrations. He could hear Tali screeching and knew that there would soon be a young child joining them in bed and demanding to open presents. Tony was honestly surprised that Gibbs was still in bed and not busy making them breakfast like he usually was by this point in time.

They’d been up late last night taking Tali around the neighborhood to see all the Christmas lights and decorations. Gibbs must have decided to sleep in until Tali woke them up. Tony couldn’t blame him, though they were both awake now.

If there weren’t sounds of Tali getting up and around, Tony would have tried to see if he could talk Gibbs into a quickie. Alas, it was pretty obvious that they had seconds at most before Tali joined them. Tony exchanged a wry look with Gibbs, who pulled him in for a kiss. 

“The work of fathers are never done,” Gibbs murmured as he pulled back.

“Nope,” Tony agreed as their door swung open and Tali rushed in.

“Presents, daddy.”

“Yep. Santa brought you lots of presents. Shall we see what you got?” Tony suggested.

Tali nodded excitedly bouncing up and down on the bed in impatience. Gibbs chuckled and gestured to the door. “Go ahead, baby girl. We’ll be out soon.”

“Don’t take long, papa. There are presents for you too.”

Gibbs shot a look at Tony. They’d agreed no gifts this year. Tony just shrugged. “I couldn’t resist.”

Gibbs shook his head. He had a few small things for Tony as well. He knew his partner was really bad at not buying gifts for Christmas, so he wasn’t really surprised.

Tali rushed out the door and Tony stood up and walked over to close it. “We better hurry up before she decides to come back and check on us,” Tony murmured, tossing pajama pants to Gibbs.

Gibbs quickly pulled the pajamas with little Santas on over his boxers. Tony had pulled on his own set of pajama pants though his featured little elves. Instead of putting the elf shirt that came with the pajama pants on, Tony stole the Santa shirt that came with the pajama pants that Gibbs was wearing and pulled that on over his head.

Gibbs couldn’t help stealing another kiss. “That looks better on you than it would on me.”

“Your shirts are always more comfortable than mine.”

“Technically, you bought both of these pajama sets.”

Tony waved dismissively. “They always smell better after you’ve worn them.”

Gibbs chuckled. He didn’t bother putting on a shirt, instead following Tony out into the living room with his top half naked.

“Ew. Papa, where are your clothes?”

“You don’t think Papa looks sexy this way?” Tony smirked at Tali.

“No. Go change, Papa.”

Tony snickered as Gibbs stared at the girl in surprise. “You’re willing to wait to open presents while I put on a shirt.”

Tali nodded emphatically. Gibbs shook his head and wandered back to their bedroom to toss on a shirt of his own. He pulled Tony’s elf shirt on over his head. 

Tali giggled as Gibbs returned. “That doesn’t fit, Papa.”

Gibbs looked down at himself, the shirt was definitely on the tight side. Tony’s smile was so wide that Gibbs didn’t think he could contain himself for much longer. “Do you want to open presents or do you want to continue critiquing my clothing choices?” Gibbs gruffly demanded.

“Presents!” Tali shouted.

“Saved by the bell,” Tony chuckled.

Gibbs shot him a dirty look, but Tony just grinned back happily before heading to the tree to start distributing presents. Gibbs let his mouth curl up in his own grin. He loved his partner even if the guy utterly failed at anything with ‘some assembly required’.

Soon the presents were all handed out and they were taking turns opening presents. Well mostly Gibbs and Tony were watching Tali open her presents. Every single one seemed to be a hit with her and she had the brightest smile on her face after all the gifts were unwrapped.

There was a nice pile of used wrapping paper next to her and Gibbs quickly added his own wrapping paper to it as he opened the gifts Tony gave him. Gibbs examined the toolset and wood that he’d gotten before reeling Tony in for a kiss. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Tony’s gifts were all that were left and he grinned widely at the cable package that Gibbs had purchased for the family. There were plenty of kid friendly channels as well as some educational ones in addition to the more adult ones that Gibbs and Tony would enjoy late at night after Tali had gone to bed. “This will be perfect.”

“Good.”

Tali ignored the two adults as she shouted, “Christmas pile!”

Next thing the two adults knew Tali had dived into the pile of wrapping paper giggling. Tony and Gibbs exchanged looks before joining her, though more carefully than Tali had as they quickly spread the wrapping paper all over each other and the living room. Privately, Tony thought that Ziva was really missing out on an amazing kid, but her loss was their gain.

Family was what mattered and Tony felt sorry for Ziva that she’d never experienced this. Eventually, Gibbs retreated to the kitchen to make them breakfast while Tony and Tali cleaned up the living room to prepare for more Christmas festivities. Tony and Gibbs had made a pact that Christmas was for family ever since they’d taken Tali in. 

They’d never once regretted taking the day off. By the time the day was over, they always felt refreshed and ready to face the world again. Just being with family on Christmas made everything better and even if they were called into work on the twenty sixth, nothing could ruin the peace they’d gained during their Christmas celebrations. The best part for both of them was remembering Tali’s beaming smile at getting to spend all day with her fathers.

**Author's Note:**

> The dictionary.com series has no stories already written for it after this one, so I will be posting at least no more stories before I stop posting again. I'm hoping to get more stories written before then, so that I don't stop posting for a while. Wish me luck! 
> 
> 2019 is almost over now! If you haven't used up your 50 prompts you only have one more month to do so. Go [here](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/cutsycat_NCIS_Prompts_2019/profile) to add your prompts to my 2019 Prompt Collection. Just click the sign up link. ;) It will remain open until the beginning of 2020. I'm hoping to complete all the 2019 prompts by the end of 2020. 
> 
> If you are not an ao3 member, you can prompt me [here](http://cutsycat.livejournal.com/50701.html). Please follow the same rules as are listed in the above link. However, because this is a handmade prompt form(that thinks it's a poll), it is considerably more limited than what ao3 provides, so please use the ao3 form if you're an ao3 member. Please note the name option is for a name that I can say this is for so that you know it's for you. Since this is for non ao3 members it won't be true gifts, but you will be mentioned in the notes. Please note if you have already voted in the poll and would like to request more stories you can just add a comment to the poll. Please include the name along with the prompt, so that I can appropriately gift the prompt to you.
> 
> For any authors that want to chat and/or are looking for a place where they can toss plot ideas around and get input from people, you can come join my discord server that is specifically geared towards writing/encouraging people to write and authors. The invite link is [here](https://discord.gg/HFvwpCq). If you're not an author, but want to chat with me about writing/stories or anything else you are welcome to join. I reserve the right to boot you from my server if all you do is pester me about updates, however. *grin* Really anyone who wants to talk about writing and/or plot ideas for various stories is welcome to join. 
> 
> Also, Drakonyashka has translated a couple of my works into Russian. [Tutelage](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378780) and [Imbue](http://archiveofourown.org/works/12378840). Go support them. 


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